


You Are Sunlight

by spdervrses



Category: hsmtmts - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, hsmtmts, kiss, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:41:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22920106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spdervrses/pseuds/spdervrses
Summary: They are a lot of things, Gina and Ricky, but friends is not one of them.
Relationships: Ricky Bowen/Gina Porter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	You Are Sunlight

Gina leaves her window open. It’s not a particularly safe practice or one that her mother would be too happy about if she knew but she’s taken to doing it more often in the past few months. Or more, precisely since she’s met, Ricky. It’s strange how she’s never had many friends before this. There’s not much time to make friends when you’re switching schools, after all, but Ricky Bowen has managed to worm his way into her life without her knowledge.

It’s not a typical friendship. After all, most friendships don’t start with a rivalry with a friend’s girlfriend—ex-girlfriend now—a very small argument and a kiss on the cheek—Gina still has no idea why she did that. But it has become a rather typical part of their non-typical friendship for Ricky to wander to the large window behind the curtains in her room and wait for her to answer. And she does. Every time.

She does so now, completely unsurprised by his presence. It’s cold outside, a thin fresh coat on snow on the ground. It is tainted only by the prints of Ricky’s feet. Ricky rubs his hands together as he stares at her through the window, waiting for her to open it further.

“I feel like you should have gloves on,” she comments when he steps in, closing the windows behind them.

Ricky turns to her with a sarcastic expression on his face. “Gee, thanks, I’ll keep that in mind next time.” His tone is careful, and an easy smile graces his lips. He’s in nothing but a small jacket and jeans. On his head, too big to properly fit him is the hat that she’d knit for him. Big or not, he wears it every time and Gina thinks it’s quite good work for her first try. She makes a mental note to knit him a pair of gloves next time that she has the time.

“You should really just come through the front door. It’s not like my mom’s home anyways.” Her mother is rarely home especially at this time of the night. Work. It’s the same reason that Gina has been to more schools than she can count and has had to reinvent herself over and over. Her mother does her best; she stocks the freezer full of food so that Gina is never stranded, and she has several emergency plans implemented. It’s not her fault that Gina has eaten more meals alone this month than she has with her mother.

She’s needed elsewhere, Gina understands that.

Her work, also conveniently makes it easy for Gina to have as many friends over as she’d like. Up until two months ago, she’d never had any friends to do so with. Until Ricky.

“Right. I come in through the front doors at nine o’clock three times a week. I’m sure your neighbours won’t wonder about that at all.”

Gina considers it for a moment. It makes sense. How else would they explain this to anybody else? People already find it hard enough to believe that the two of them are simply friends and nothing else. Something about the way they interact with each other. Either way, it’s not easy to explain. Besides, something about all of this; the sneaking around even if it is completely innocent is exciting to her.

As if he’s her secret.

“Point made.” She drops onto her bed. “We wouldn’t want people to start talking, now would we?”

Ricky falls onto the bed beside her, far too comfortable in her room at this point. He turns his head slightly so that they’re level and he’s staring directly at her. He raises a bushy brow at her. “Let ‘em talk.”

She has no idea what to say to that.

But he stares at her for a moment too long, his eyes soft and his face just inches from hers. Gina takes note of the way that his long lashes flutter against his pale skin. His eyes look like so much more than brown now and she feels as if she could observe them forever. Her heart plays hopscotch in her chest.

Gina breaks her gaze, sitting up on the edge of the bed. She turns slightly so that he can’t see her. Gina doesn’t necessarily blush but if she could, she would be a shade of red at the moment. “Okay, come on. We have to get work done. Last time, all you did was distract me and I nearly failed my test.”

“What exactly is a fail?” Ricky asks, mocking her with his eyes.

“Listen, an eighty is not a good mark. Especially not when my other marks are higher.”

“Tell that to my sixty in biology.”

Gina raises her brow at him, pausing in the middle of pulling a history textbook from her bag to look at him. “I thought you had a seventy in bio.”

“Well, unlike you, I actually did fail my test.”

“Which is exactly why you need to study.” Gina grabs a pillow and shoves at lightly at him. It hits him square in the head and Ricky freezes. There’s a small pause and Ricky pouts lightly, although they both know that there’s no possibility that the contact from the pillow actually hurt. He tilts his head lightly at Gina and at the moment makes her chuckle lightly.

She drops her textbook onto the book and stands square in front of Ricky so she’s looking down at him slightly. Gina smiles a small smile at him before placing a finger under his chin and lifting his face so that he’s looking up at her. There’s a heavy silence between them, the suggestive position that they’ve found themselves in dawning on them. It looks like she might kiss him.

And Ricky thinks that he wants her to. No, scratch that, Ricky is sure that he wants her to. All of his impulses make him want to throw all caution to the wind and kiss her. But this is his friend. Nothing more. And he can’t complicate this.

Gina doesn’t break her gaze from his. Instead, she moves her finger from his chin to his hair, brushing aside a stray curl. When she steps back, she smiles at him. “There was some snow in your hair.”

Ricky doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure that his voice still works. Instead, he nods and swallows roughly.

It feels like they find some reason to touch each other from then on. The slight brush of his fingers against her wrist or her shoulder bumping his lightly as they work. To his credit, Ricky really does work as he promised. Pencil scratch against paper interrupted but lighthearted arguments and chuckles. Every so often, she looks up to find Ricky’s eyes on her, whether it’s a stare or just a momentary glance. Every single time, it feels like he’s seeing through her. She burns under his gaze.

And she craves it somehow. She wants his eyes on her, watching her when he thinks she doesn’t notice. Or his fingers lightly holding onto her hers without a thought. Gina wants him close to her, closer than she should. It almost scares her.

When Ricky suggests that they take a break from work, Gina doesn’t argue. She can’t seem to focus on the actual work anyways. He picks the movie and she prepares snacks. Just thirty minutes of the movie, Ricky promises, and they can go back to work. It doesn’t take much convincing for Gina to give in. It’s easier to be around him anyway when they’re watching a movie.

When Gina leans her head against his shoulder, she keeps her gaze trained on the television, not daring to look at him for a moment. Ricky has the opposite problem. He can’t seem to stop looking at her. He’s all too aware of her head on his shoulder and when the position shifts so that he’s sitting behind her and she’s leaning into him, her back flush against his chest and his chin resting on her shoulder, looking past her at the television, he’s aware of that as well.

Sometime through the night, an hour into the movie despite the promise of only half an hour—a victory for Ricky—she whispers into the dark, still not looking at him. “Hey, Ricky?” He feels the slight vibrations of her voice against his chest.

“Guinevere?” he replies, a smile on his face. It’s a game that he’s started playing seeing as Gina refuses to tell him her full first name. Besides, he likes the name, Guinevere. It’s a name that is not easily ignored. It’s fitting, he thinks.

“You’re one of my first friends, you know?”

This time, he really does stop and look at her. She turns slightly too so that there’s hardly any space between them. “Really?” It’s not the pitying expression that she’d expected or even shock. She can’t describe what it is.

Gina nods at him. Ricky’s smile is something harnessed from the sun’s rays. “Well, I’m honoured. That’s really cool.”

But this thing that they are, it’s not friends. It is whispered secrets and hands held in the dark. It is lingering gazes and promises. They are a lot of things, Gina and Ricky, but friends is not one of them. They have no idea what they are.

But they are right there, hardly any space between them in the darkened room.

As to why she kissed him that night, Gina doesn’t know. It might have had something to do with the way that he looked at her, eyes wide and innocent, trained directly on her and nothing else as if he can’t seem to look past her. Enthralled, the word is enthralled. Ricky looked enthralled by her and the very presence of him makes every hair on her skin stand on the edge and her heart gallop into her throat. It might be the same reason that she does what she does.

She leans into him, turning slightly so that she doesn’t have to move her entire body. Gina inhales sharply as she leans into him, her eyes on his lips. Suddenly, she’s kissing him, her lips against hers. He freezes for a moment and Gina feels herself begin to hyperventilate. She’s made a mistake here and now she’s ruining her friendship—

And he’s kissing her back. Clumsy but eager. Gina feels as if her world might fall away. Ricky’s holds her cheek with his hands bringing her closer to him. With his other hand, he brushes away a loose curl from her face. His entire body is buzzing suddenly with adrenaline.

When they pull away, they stay in that position or a while, her forehead against his. There are no words. They don’t need them. Ricky kisses her lips one more time, quicker but every bit as exciting before they pull away.

They watch the rest of the movie with Gina against him and their fingers linked. When the night ends, Ricky slips right back out of her window with a smile on his face as they walk home.

But they don’t talk about the kiss.

And shortly after, Gina is gone, with her mother in the middle of the night. To another job, in another city and they don’t talk about the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> i very much did write this at 2 in the morning


End file.
